There're a lot of jokes making _why and Zed out to be foils today, and in a lot of ways they're true.
Zed's very no-nonsense. He's spent a lot of time manufacturing an image of himself. He lets himself get carried away and angry and he's been searching for a community he likes, butting heads all the way.
_why, on the other hand, was truly bizarre. I never got into his blog, for instance, because it seemed frequently nonsensical and more than a little rambling. Despite that (or, more likely, because of it), he seemed almost always happy with whatever it was he did. I only ever really got into TryRuby and his Poignant Guide, but they were the only two guides to programming I've played with. There was a giddiness in his work that I haven't found in other coding. It's comparable to the moods of artists in other fields.
Zed's argument against _why is that what he did was impractical and unproductive. That's what made _why as a persona, though: Zed is a hacker, _why was more of an artist, pretenses and unreliability and all. It's left-brained versus right-brained; it's also why there's a definite rift between the people who like _why and the people who think the guy was raving mad and immature.
Practicing yoga is the only requirement to be a yogi. Hacking is much the same way. We all share similar goals but our practices are always intensely personal. If you're practiced enough you know that what you consider important and what you consider progress continuously changes. Thus we don't judge someone else or their practice but appreciate the opportunity to practice with them. Without question both Zed Shaw and _why have hacked. I think it's important to appreciate many qualities of both without needing to apply labels to either.
Zed Shaw(and many others) may not agree with what _why did but what _why did was well within his rights and hence there is no reason to disrespect him. What disappoints me is that Zed shaw(and some in the original thread) quickly declaring _why a dick. "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it - Voltaire". Where is that spirit ?
Huh? KKK members have every right to express their racist attitudes, but I'll still call them dicks. "You have every right to do what you did" and "I think what you did was an asshole move" are not exclusive statements.
I understand your point, but you just compared some guy removing his freely-released code from the Internet to a gang of people who went around lynching black people.
No he didn't (mature, right?), he was just showing the obvious flaw in the argument by taking it to its extreme. He did not in any way compayre _why to the KKK.
His and your analysis of the argument is incorrect, and I'm surprised you'd endorse such a Godwin-violating^ argument.
^ Yes, I know the KKK are not technically Nazis.
Leaving personalities out of it, there is a big qualitative difference between ceasing to share something (in the worst case, undirected passive-aggressive behavior) and actively attacking other people (in the worst case, highly directed active-aggressive behavior).
Maybe I wasn't very clear in my original statement. I wasn't reaching into the past and saying that the KKK burning crosses on lawns and lynching black people is a right in any way, shape or form. That sort of activity is illegal whether or not it is 'hatred' related and for good reason. Nowadays the KKK is pretty much just another protest group. They show up to places having to do with race and protest (or try to agitate opposing protesters). My point basically being 'freedom of speech' (i.e. the KKK expressing their racist attitudes by speaking or writing/publishing) is their right.
In any case, with or without the statement involving the KKK, I believe that my final statement in that post stands.
The editing clock has expired on my post above. I appreciate your point which was why I abstracted things into general terms - I still feel the qualitative difference is there, not because of specific history or PC-ness.
It's like if I was mad for some reason (eg my zero karma above) and responded by flaming you vs. simply not answering.
I'll assume that you're not from the US and politely disagree with the Canadian/European attitude that you can institute social change by making certain types of speech illegal... (i.e. Holocaust denial is illegal -- well at least publishing material about it is -- in Canada because it was deemed to be speech that 'incites hatred') (i.e. Nazi memorabilia is illegal in Germany, as well as other European nations like France)
I'll leave you with this little nugget though. Freedom of speech isn't really true freedom of speech if what you really mean is 'freedom to say only the things that I want to hear.'
Freedom of speech in Europe is essentially dead as long as in the countries with royal houses you can't insult the royals and you can't state any falsehoods wrt to whatever happened in worldwar II.
I'm all for documenting and educating, not for outlawing stupidity, no matter how long your toes.
I think I'd rather have USA style free speech laws than the make-believe ones that we have here. You can keep the guns though.
?? living in the UK I have yet ot be lynched for calling the royal family pompous.. well.. ;)
Also I think there is some confusion here on the difference between the statments:
"It is my belief that...."
and
"It is a fact that...."
One is covered in free speech, one is (rightly) restricted by all sorts of law (for example defamation when applicable to statements about people). Think about it - if we had the inherent right to tell people our ideas were fact when this is not established
Your free to think what you want, and tell people that's what you think. But presenting beliefs as fact is a big no no. Right? :)
(holocaust denial being illegal is, I agree, somewhat of an extreme case and I dont agree with it so much)
I don't remember to ever read _why's texts or interact with him in any other way - but what you write here, seem close in a way, even if the very opposite in other ways, to the story of Netochka Nezvanova (http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?NetochkaNezvanova). By they way I've already posted that link as a story here.
Zed's very no-nonsense. He's spent a lot of time manufacturing an image of himself. He lets himself get carried away and angry and he's been searching for a community he likes, butting heads all the way.
_why, on the other hand, was truly bizarre. I never got into his blog, for instance, because it seemed frequently nonsensical and more than a little rambling. Despite that (or, more likely, because of it), he seemed almost always happy with whatever it was he did. I only ever really got into TryRuby and his Poignant Guide, but they were the only two guides to programming I've played with. There was a giddiness in his work that I haven't found in other coding. It's comparable to the moods of artists in other fields.
Zed's argument against _why is that what he did was impractical and unproductive. That's what made _why as a persona, though: Zed is a hacker, _why was more of an artist, pretenses and unreliability and all. It's left-brained versus right-brained; it's also why there's a definite rift between the people who like _why and the people who think the guy was raving mad and immature.